Monday, June 23, 2008

In the fall I took the kids to the Autumnal Equinox performance along the Charles River. The same group that sings, parades and encourages the audience to ring bells as the sun sets over the river in September also performs a large summer solstice celebration next to the big city children's museum.

There were steel drums, huge butterfly puppets, men with dreadlocks escaping from straight jackets and aerialists.

There was a boater in the industrial channel next to the museum, between two bridges, who told the kids he was looking for a water dragon and desperately asked if they saw one. The kids would scream "Right behind you!!!!!!!!!" and he would dramatically miss finding the dragon trailing right behind his boat.

The main performance always involves something about the sun and the moon. There is a conscious effort to incorporate the songs, stories and dance from different cultures. This year it was China, Ireland and Latin America.

Before the main performance there was Indian dancing. I could not get enough of their incredible dancing and the music performed on the stage (instead of played from a CD).

But perhaps the image that will stay with me the most is the image I never captured with the camera. It was a woman in traditional West African clothes and head wrap dancing to La Bamba with a woman I had heard earlier in the evening speaking Spanish to a child. That woman was dressed in an elegant all-black evening gown. They were joined by a white woman dressed in a Mad Hatter hat and tight stripped pants with flared bottoms. They joyously danced together with several children in a walkway in front of the stage. All members of the audience, they got up to dance.

And welcome summer together.

See below for the die-hard Music Monday folks. And sorry for the delay! It was a late night and today would be the day that Blogger would decide to have technical difficulties with uploading photos.